Microsoft leaks Zune Details in FCC filing

cnet-declan writes "One of my colleagues at CNET News.com has picked up on a filing that Microsoft made yesterday with the FCC. Our article reports that Microsoft's Zune media player (the iPod rival discussed before on Slashdot) is going to have features such as creating mobile social networks and streaming music to nearby friends or strangers. It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

I may want one of these after all

With the device's wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as "promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists," according to the filing.

Or maybe someone can figure out how to broadcast images to all nearby Zunes with a linux app, so when I drive down the street or ride the train with my laptop I could flood all the nearby Zunes with goatse images. "Awww look someone is sending me a cute puppy picture....augggghhhhh"

Re:I may want one of these after all

Wireless. More space than a nomad. Lame.

Re:I may want one of these after all

The Windows key is very useful, and the fact that no applications use it is what makes it useful: it allows for a wide variety of windowing system-specific keybindings that won't conflict with application keybindings. That's exactly the way I set up my FVWM bindings, all on mod4, and no matter what crazy-ass bindings my apps use (and it wouldn't be a Unix app if it didn't have crazy-ass bindings) they don't conflict with my crazy-ass bindings because just about no apps use mod4 for shortcuts (a pox on any that do).

Windows differs from my setup (which is clearly perfect) in a few ways. First, it uses alt-tab, whereas I use mod4+tab for consistency (and my keyboard's two meta keys are each bigger than its one alt key anyhow). Second, it brings up the Start menu when you tap the Windows key, which is the part that's pure evil. IMHO modifier keys should strictly be modifier keys. This also goes for alt (compare, say, GTK+'s alt behavior with that of most Win32 programs).

But the overriding point is that Microsoft hardware doesn't really have much to do with the Windows key. Unix vendors and also Apple have had similar keys long before Microsoft introduced theirs (though Apple's key is also the primary key used for app bindings). And IMO its failings have entirely to do with software. If you want to disable it in Windows there's a registry hack to do that, which can be found by searching the wb if you're lucky.

Re:I may want one of these after all

Windows + E -> Launch Windows Explorer with folder view ( I use this several times a day, and Kiss it when I switch to KDE )
Windows + M -> Minimize all
Windows + Shift + M -> unminimize all
Windows + R -> Run Dialog
Windows + F -> Search Dialog

Wouldn't call it a useless key.

Microsoft is Fighting the Last War

One consistent trap that people fall into in all areas is "fighting the last war" - thinking of what you would have needed to win in a previous battle that you lost (or what somebody else who lost would have needed to win) and trying to win the next one by providing that, all the while forgetting that the victor is probably not resting on his or her laurels.

That's what Microsoft is doing here. This might have been enough to defeat the Video iPod, but that was the last device. This will - at most - be on par with Apple's new offering, and probably beat by it. It looks like Apple's new iPod will have an even bigger screen than this, by moving the touchpad to the back. That plus WiFi will probably be enough to keep this at bay, not to mention any other extra features Apple might add.

Overall, there is no clear "killer app" that makes me think this will be successful. The Zune looks fully competent, but you need more than competence to defeat a de facto standard. I don't know about you, but the prospect of being able to borrow a song from a friend for a day before it is cancelled provided we are both using Zunes doesn't get me very excited. Nor do I have any desire to beam random files to strangers. The ability to work with social networks might be cool but there are no details on that, and I'm not going to get my hopes up.

There is of course an easier way to defeat a de facto standard - beat them on price. If this were offered for a very low price, for example $150 or $200 for a 30GB model, they would steal a lot of market share from Apple and make up the money with future models once people warmed to their product. That's why companies call them "entry models." But they are charging $300 for this, so there is no monetary reason for anybody to take a "step down" from the iPod, which is the way any non-iPod device is currently perceived, fair or not.

Among other features...

30 minutes of battery life?

Re:Among other features...

Hopefully you'll be able to plug a USB keyboard into it, to press ctrl-alt-del when it crashes.

Why Stop There?

Hopefully you'll be able to plug a USB keyboard into it, to press ctrl-alt-del when it crashes.

You joke, but to me, a keyboard sounds like a damn good idea.

I have a few more feature requests:

• Built-in speakers (headphones-free)
• More HD space (100GB+)
• Larger screen (say 15" or 17")
• Enough CPU and RAM to handle real world apps (maybe Turion 64x2 with 2GB RAM?)
• DVD Burner (so you can share movies you made with your Zune)
• 12-cell Lithium Ion battery so it can last more than an hour or two.

Zune has a real opportunity here. Sure, the iPod dominates the market, but I think a lot of people are frustrated with its lack of ability to author DVDs, host webservers or calculate Mersenne primes.

Heck No

Many challengers to the mighty Pod have come; all have gone away, weeping in the night like chastened schoolboys. This too shall pass.

missing the social point

I've been at Microsoft, I've worked at Microsoft. This Zune may be the hit of the century on Microsoft campus. Too bad that won't be enough to sustain a profitable market for the Zune.

I have visions of geeks, sitting around the room, typing furiously at their keyboards, IM'ing with each other, in the same frigging room! Because they can!

And now, I envision those same people, sitting around with wireless mp3 (not) players, sharing each other's music wirelessly, because they can! That's not how it works for the general population. The distance to which these devices can communicate as peers limits their usefulness as social devices, i.e., the people are all going to be in the same room! I.E., they can plug their iPods into the stereo. And, at the same time will be able to talk to each other.

Apple got it right (even though it's not for me) with iTunes and the iPod. Clever marketing, sexy device (the Zune's not looking so sexy to me), and lots of social advertising. The iPod is the thing. The Zune isn't nor will it be.

The only distinguishing feature of the Zune is its wireless capability. How many of you have ever had non-stop continuous hassle free wireless experiences? I mean non-stop as in music streaming... I use it all the time with Squeezebox with the wink and nod that I will get a hiccup now and then. But, for a device that's moving?, a device that's likely to be hugely underpowered to support signal, especially transmission?. Wireless: a distinguishing feature, but a problematic one.

Looking at the company info on Microsoft, I'm guessing there'll be sales of about 60,000 Zunes.

Re:missing the social point

There are hundreds of millions of people who commute by train every day around the world, many of them carrying iPods or similar non-networked media players. I don't see any problem for this device to have the range of several train cars. I can see it being a big hit for those commuters, if it is advertised properly (on trains, duh).

Also it should be marketed to people who workout in gyms. Many of those people are carrying iPods or whatever, and they're all in basically the same room for about an hour.

Then it can't be crippled with pointless DRM (you should be able to share any song). Fat chance of that, though.

Re:missing the social point

There are hundreds of millions of people who commute by train every day around the world..

Who, for the vast majority, never ever utter a single word to their fellow commuters unless they're friends already. It's a sad fact that a universal constant on buses, trains, tubes, and metros the world over is everyone travelling in deathly silence from the moment they board until the moment they alight at their destination.

If Microsoft can make people strike up conversations with the strangers around them they don't deserve a business success with the Zune, they deserve the next 100 Nobel Peace Prizes.

Itunes baby Itunes not hardware

The seamless integration between the iPod and iTunes are its biggest selling point. The hardware is cool but integration is what made members of my family buy the iPod. There are many people that use it as an mp3 player but the hundreds of millions of songs being sold on iTune attest to the formidable platform that Apple has put forth. I would like to hear more on what Zune will be connecting to for media.

Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?

iDon't Think so..

I can just see the TV Ads..

Steve Balmer in silhouette with a glowing cord doing his monkey dance.

Re:I can just see the TV Ads..

As I read that, I thought it was going to end with, "...throwing chairs at silhouetted dancers with white headphones."

Perhaps not as social as the summary suggests.

Funny, after first reading:

"Microsoft's Zune media player is going to have features such as creating mobile social networks and streaming music to nearby friends or strangers"

I thought, how on earth will MS get away with allowing people to share music with one another, given the way they've bowed to industry pressure regarding HDCP on 32-bit Vista? Then I read the article, which only mentions "promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists,". This is hardly the same thing as unfettered sharing, and seems pretty limiting... practically pointless, IMHO.

Try "anti-social"

I do not want somebody else sending me what amounts to an ad for a song or a video!

I see a new business, though: Set up a wifi base with a fair amount of power. Send ads to everybody who passes with a Zune. Yeah, I can see it already. No, that doesn't make me want a Zune over an iPod. I get enough advertising in my day already, thanks.

More space than a Nomad

Wifi. More space than a Nomad.

Sorry, still lame :)

"Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

Let's say it again: it's not what you have, but how you use it. Creative has shown that features are not what sells PMPs, it's ease of use. Even if Microsoft pulls this off at a comparable price point, they also have to have good integration with their online music store, and allow people to burn to/rip from CDs.

Along another train of thought... I guess this is what the MS patent posted earlier today is all about... controlling who uses up the bandwidth on your device when social networking.

Thinking along these lines... what MS REALLY needs to do is to create a way for the devices to share music with each other; first 30 secs are free... if someone wants to copy the entire song over, MS bills their credit card, and the person gets a DRMed copy of the song locked to their device.

Potential for major copyright infringement?

If this device can set up ad-hoc social networks and allow users within that network to share things with each other, I wonder how the RIAA/MPAA is going to react when they realize one person bought a song or video, but over a million have that exact same copy of that song thanks to the way the Zune works?

First thing I think of when I see wireless networking with the ability to share things with others is "What kinda stuff do they have that I want, and can get without having to pay for it?"

Big Omission

I didn't see "cool" listed anywhere. Without that feature, how can it unseat the iPod? I hope this doesn't mean that they are planning to hire Paris Hilton to say "That's Hot".

and weigh?

"It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

And with a standard battery it will last 6 minutes so you can get in one complete song.

Wireless? Colour me afraid

Hmmm. Now it may be able to get away with this safely, but why does Microsoft Product + wireless + sharing strike fear into my heart?

Sounds like a recipe for viruses and malware to me. How about people setting broadcast hotspots to spew advertisement at your device should it become popular?

Hope they do well

My wife and I already plan on buying a pair of these. Finally we will have a way to communicate over that distance from my end of the couch to hers. No more verbal arguments about which satellite channel to watch.

Apple has a secret.

Apple has a secret. Their mass-appeal toys are simple. The first ipods did one thing, music. The competitors crammed music and audio recording and yada yada yada...

The second ipod does music and videos. Not all the codecs mind you, but what percentage of regular users know what a codec is? They just know the icons with play buttons on them aren't just big pictures, they are videos and should play when clicked. The competition now steps it up a notch and does audio, video, fm recording (and broadcasting), usb mass storage, touch screens, vga screens, bluetooth, etc. But of those things, usrs only know what they know... so most of the features go unused. Users do know ipods do video though...

The next ipod incarnation will add another feature. It will be a feature people actually want / need / will use. Perhaps it's wireless sync with their home pc (with included iWiFiDock). Other toys *ahem* mp3 players will continue to blossom with features, but most people will not care.

Microsoft's new DAP/DVP/social networking toys will surely get some people interested, but really, who sits in a room full of strangers now and actively looks around for people to meet and talk to, speaking to 6 or 8 at a time? Is that going to be a selling point to someone who doesn't even understand how that technology works, why they would want to do it and what kind of other people would be doing the same thing? Besides a singles party or a high school, who will whip this device out to bandaid their social ineptness?

Don't get me wrong, if I had one I'd try it out, but I will never pay money for one. My VGA pocket pc with 8GB flash card plays full screen video for several hours in virtually all formats, about every audio format, and it has games on it so I can keep myself entertained when I'm with the in-laws.

And just so everyone knows, I do not like ipods. I despise them. And I actually do use features like bluetooth and fm record. My favorite DVP/DAP player at the moment (on paper) is the IUBI from Korea [iubi.co.kr]. XVID, touch screen and a big HDD. It looks simple, isn't to big, and it has a lot of features. If I could just figure out how to get one shipped to the US that would be great.

802.11b

It's going to support the 802.11b and 802.11g wireless standards, have a 30GB hard drive, support music, movies, and photos, and have a 3-inch screen. Is this finally enough to unseat Apple?"

Why support the now quite obsolete 802.11b standard, unless that support isn't already automatically incorporated into the 802.11g standard? Are there tons of 802.11b standard MP3 players already running around out there that Zune needs to be compatible with?

And if 802.11b standard support is part of the 802.11g standard, then why bother to mention it separately?

And if you don't enable WAP on your connection, will the RIAA sue you for filesharing un-DRMed music?

sell at a loss, pay vendors to push it like WinCE

Sure they can unseat Apple, they just need to follow the same trail as with Palm. Microsoft can afford to lose $8-$10 billion on this too and in 5 years, who knows, Zune might have close to 50% marketshare and enough vendors willing to take the Microsoft payoffs to push Zune over 50% a few years later.

When you pay vendors to push your product with the cash Microsoft dumps on them, they can't afford to NOT 'sell' MS Zune. That also means that they can not afford to sell any other product like it either. Vendors can get 'hooked' on those marketing dollars and when they try to sell say a Linux device or Apple device, they learn how tough the MSFT habit has them hooked. IMO.

So the game has been played out before and it's the same 'nobody wins except the MS Windows monopoly' kind of ending. The only question I see is will it take 5 or 8 years?

LoB

Think XBox

When MS first announced XBOX who thought they would have a fighting chance against Sony's Playstation? Now here we are 4 years later. Have any of you changed your mind? Do not underestimate a company full of smart people armed with loads of cash and a long term view.

As regards iPod - personally, I carry a Pocket PC - it basically matches the specs of the Zune (except I have an SD card instead of a 30GB hard drive). It is my music player (mp3s and downloaded Yahoo Music WMAs), my PDA, my portable gaming machine and my mobile internet appliance. And I have had it for 2 years now. Battery life is phenomenal (I easily get a week on a charge). Now, that said, I bought iPod Nanos for my kids. They are the cool thing to have right now. However, cool with the younger set is a fleeting thing ... check back in 3 years and see what things look like. And don't be surprised if it's a much closer race.

Hmmm, interesting .......

SCAM

I think you're onto something!